National News

Computer-Generated Child Nabs 1K Predators

(NEWSER) – Dutch children's rights activists have come up with a novel way to catch online predators: They created a very realistic computer-generated 10-year-old girl. Researchers from the organization, Terre des Hommes, then posed as "Sweetie," who was supposedly from the Philippines, and logged onto Internet chat rooms. During the 10-week sting, 20,000 people contacted Sweetie, theBBC reports; out of those, 1,000 adults solicited her, offering to pay to watch her undress or perform sex acts via webcam. The US was the top country of origin, with 254 solicitors, then Britain with 110. Here's a sample chat that occurred during a demonstration given to the AP: